Today, many of Egypt’s top TV presenters and journalists are remarkably candid about their willingness to act as government mouthpieces.

“I would say anything the military tells me to say out of duty and respect for the institution,” says Ahmed Moussa, one of the most popular TV presenters in Egypt.

Moussa has no qualms admitting on air his relationship with the authorities – and his vocation to serve them. He claims he would also extend the same courtesy to the police, he said but he “might stop and think a little first”.

Sharing Moussa’s sense of duty towards the military is the veteran talk show host Mahmoud Saad, from Al-Nahar TV. “The military should never, ever, ever be covered,” he says, shaking his head. “You have to let them decide what to say and when to say it. You don’t know what will hurt national security.”

But it’s also the power to influence people that appeals to him, he says. “It’s a beautiful feeling knowing that when you swing right,” he says as he swivels his upper body right, “the people will swing right. “And when you swing left,” he goes on, swivelling in the opposite direction “the people will swing left.”

Popular comedian Bassem Youssef before the start of his satirical Egyptian news program, hosted on ONtv. Photograph: David Degner/Getty Images

‘The official story makes people feel better’

Before 2011, there was an unspoken rule among broadcasters and newspapers: criticise everyone except the president and his immediate family. To some, this silence extended to the defence and interior ministers.

El-Watan reporter Ahmed Ghoniem says owning media outlets “comes in handy if you get into any kind of trouble and have to pressure the government”. But no owner completely “unleashes his journalists” on the government, he says.

But after Mubarak’s fall from power, the media exploded in congratulations, apologies and promises to never return to “the days of humiliation” that were Mubarak’s reign, as popular TV host Amr Adeeb tearfully declared on ONtv.

“We [talk show hosts] were cowards... The authorities used to call all the shows to dictate content,” said Adeeb, who had once claimed that Mubarak had personally protected his freedom of expression – and indeed that of all journalists.

The media is not free, but better be controlled by Sisi and not the west

Given this climate of well-known government pressure, many younger Egyptians are deeply cynical about the media, but older viewers have a softer view. “So what if they paid respect to Mubarak? Everyone did,” says 63-year-old retired teacher, Amal el-Tahry.

Ahmed Abdullah, who owns a shop in the capital, is also ambivalent: “The media is not free, but better be controlled by Sisi and not the west,” says the 55-year-old.

The government sanctioned narrative offers a sweeter pill, claims TV producer Sherief Badie el-Nour: “People believe the official story because it makes them feel better,” he says. “It requires less work from them as individuals.”

“What can the viewer do about it? Change the channel? He will find another host saying the same thing,” he says.

Egyptians wave national flags at a celebration in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on 3 June 2014. Photograph: Mohamed el-Shahed/AFP/Getty Images

Self-censorship

This pervasive pressure from government has prompted journalists to police themselves more rigorously.

Dot Masr reporter Mohamed Abu Asay says in the past he could never report on the budget deficit in Egypt and the Saudi-Egyptian military operation in Yemen in the same piece. “I can’t tie the idea that the government doesn’t have money, but is abandoning its war on terror to go fight in Yemen, in the reader’s mind,” he says. “It might stir public opinion and that is not good for the regime or the funders.” Abu Asay knows that if he doesn’t self-censor, his editors simply won’t run it.

At Al Masry Al Youm, reporters also say they know which topics to avoid. “No one can question how [well] trained the soldiers we have thrown to face the insurgency in Sinai,” says website editor Ahmed Ragab.

“No one has ever made me say something I didn’t want to say, but they have made me not say what I wanted to say,” says the TV presenter Mahmoud Saad.

Lighting a cigarette, Saad reflects on the many phone conversations he says he had with Mubarak’s minister of information, Anas el-Fiqqi, arguing about the topics he was allowed to discuss, whom to interview, and for how long. “He called me to tell me to say that the 25 January protests in 2011 were [organised by the rival] Muslim Brotherhood. I refused and I didn’t go on air,” he recalls.

Saad no longer has that fighting spirit. “I am an old man,” he says. “I just want to spend my time here in quiet” – of which there is plenty in his brightly lit villa in a gated community in Giza.

“I don’t want to ruin anyone’s day,” he says. “The viewer is tired. He doesn’t want to hear about corruption and theft.” This desire to please is clear on Saad’s show, where all he had to say on the day a court dropped charges of killing protesters against Mubarak was: “Is it really important that we get into details? I think not.”

We are tools, not journalists. The media owners use us to attack the regime when they want and support it when they want

Ahmed Amir, journalist

But frustration amongst journalists is also growing, and not everyone is resigned to become beholden to the government’s narrative. Some have some have quit their jobs, but many also keep their head down to make ends meet.

“Give me a nine to five job and I will quit tomorrow,” says young journalist Ahmed Amir. Amir works on Ahmed Moussa’s TV talk show on Sada el-Balad TV.

“We are tools, not journalists. The media owners use us to attack the regime when they want and support it when they want,” he says. “This is the profession of those with no conscience.”